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Shy 13 year-old Koubra Mamane’s answer surprises me. A bit hesitant in her speech, and a bit skeptical of the whole interview, she reminds me of your typical teenage girl. She tells us she loves mathematics and has to help her mom around the house. She shows us her school books carefully stowed in a bright yellow and red purse.
“I like calculations in school, but I like to also the other subjects because I want to become intelligent and gain knowledge,” she adds.
But her dreams of the future that wouldn’t be the only answer that makes me pause. In fact the next one has been stuck in my head ever since it can out of her mouth. We ask Koubra about the food shortages in her village. She says that when there is no money, her family can not buy food. Those days she and her family do not eat.
“Sometimes we get food, some days we don’t have food,” Koubra tells us in a tone that makes it all too clear that this happens frequently in her life. “If you are hungry, you feel that your body is weak. And it’s not the same thing if you’ve eaten.”
Koubra’s family is not alone. All over West Africa the signs are beginning to show that this no ordinary lean season. The government in Niger estimates around 9 million people are vulnerable or at risk in the food crisis. It’s a problem that’s compounded by Niger’s inherent poverty and high malnutrition rates. Most communities we’ve spoken with are already seeing the signs, whether it’s men leaving to find work in other cities or parents deciding which days they have to see their kids go to bed hungry.
“Some have little and some do not have anything. That is the reason we’re asking for help,” says Hachimou Inoussa, the chief of the village.
I’ve seen these facts and figures on paper, the measures indicating a bad harvest. I thought it had sunk in. I was wrong. Today for the first time, I get it. It took a 13 year old girl, much like my younger cousins or even my little sister just a few years ago calmly telling me she does not eat some days.
We spend a little more time with her and the village before heading home. It’s hard to leave, even though I know World Vision is stepping up to help. A little earlier in that same village we interviewed the head of the cereal bank. In fact one of the banks has been set up especially for women and children. As we leave, I see Koubra go back to her regular day, entertaining her little sister, the camera and interview soon forgotten. I hope the food finds its way to her. I hope it’s a very long time until she can say the words “some days we don’t have food.”
For more information on how you can help, visit www.worldvision.org
To hear more about Koubra's visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1swsuMn53i8&list=UUL-OD8a2KRYKIUr5bAs6B3A&index=5&feature=plcp
